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How It Works

CMS TEAM Analyzer is a warehouse-native dbt package. It reads Tuva-conformed claims and membership data, constructs TEAM episodes, assigns spend, resolves target prices, and publishes marts for reporting and action planning.

Processing Flow

  1. Stage Tuva inputs: medical claims, encounters, eligibility, patients, practitioners, and MS-DRG terminology are normalized behind package staging models.
  2. Find candidate anchors: inpatient MS-DRGs and outpatient HCPCS triggers identify possible TEAM episodes.
  3. Resolve episode rules: outpatient-to-inpatient precedence, overlap handling, death during anchor, and episode date windows are applied.
  4. Assign claims: claims overlapping the 30-day episode window are attached to the episode and classified into spend components.
  5. Apply exclusions and proration: available CMS-style exclusions and boundary proration logic reduce included spend where supported by source data.
  6. Calculate target prices: participant-specific CMS targets, public CMS regional PY1 targets, and local directional baselines are resolved into an active target price.
  7. Publish marts: episode, overview, performance-period, driver, care-pathway, opportunity, and reconciliation-style tables are built for downstream use.

Anchor Trigger Definitions

CMS defines TEAM episode initiation in 42 CFR § 512.525. The package-managed trigger seeds implement those inpatient MS-DRG and outpatient HCPCS definitions.

Episode categoryInpatient anchor MS-DRGsOutpatient anchor HCPCS
Lower Extremity Joint Replacement (LEJR)469, 470, 521, 52227447, 27130, 27702
Surgical Hip/Femur Fracture Treatment (SHFFT)480, 481, 482Not applicable
Coronary Artery Bypass Graft Surgery (CABG)231, 232, 233, 234, 235, 236Not applicable
Spinal Fusion402, 426, 427, 428, 429, 430, 447, 448, 450, 451, 471, 472, 47322551, 22554, 22612, 22630, 22633
Major Bowel Procedure329, 330, 331Not applicable

For outpatient-triggered episodes, the package normalizes HCPCS triggers to MS-DRG-like target-price categories:

Episode categoryOutpatient HCPCSTarget MS-DRG category
LEJR27447, 27130470
LEJR27702469
Spinal Fusion22551, 22554473
Spinal Fusion22612, 22630451
Spinal Fusion22633402

CMS also specifies outpatient-to-inpatient precedence: if a qualifying inpatient hospitalization starts on the same day or within 3 days after a qualifying outpatient procedure in the same episode category, the episode start date is the outpatient procedure date.

Target Price Precedence

The package chooses the best available target price for each episode:

PrioritySourceWhen used
1Participant-specific CMS target pricesClient supplies target-price rows from CMS participant/eDFR-style files
2Public CMS PY1 regional target pricesPackage finds a match by performance year, census division, bundle, and MS-DRG
3Local directional baselinePackage estimates a planning benchmark from the client's baseline period

This lets teams start quickly with public target data, then increase precision when official participant-specific files are available.

Implemented Analytics

  • Episode construction for all five TEAM bundle categories
  • Outpatient-to-inpatient anchor precedence
  • Overlap suppression so the first active TEAM episode wins
  • Claim assignment across anchor, professional, outpatient, post-acute, DME, hospice, and readmission components
  • Post-episode days 31-60 monitoring
  • Open episode status and spend-to-snapshot reporting
  • Directional risk features including age band, disability, dual eligibility, lookback utilization, lookback spend, and prior post-acute care
  • Hospital/site features including episode volume and safety-net proxy metrics
  • Driver analysis by surgeon, anchor site, post-acute partner, discharge disposition, and episode category

Data Fidelity Notes

CMS TEAM Analyzer is built for operational planning and performance management. Some official CMS reconciliation details require data that is not always present in standard client claims feeds.

AreaCurrent approach
NTAP exclusion via value code 77Supported when usable value-code fields are supplied
OPPS pass-through device exclusionSupported when OPPS status indicator data or mapping is supplied
CMS standardized allowed amountConfigurable only when the client supplies a standardized amount
CDI, LIS, LTI, and full CMS risk model featuresDirectional proxies today; optional enrichment path where data exists
Quality adjustmentPlanned future scenario layer, not an official quality adjustment result
Final CMS reconciliation parityNot claimed; official CMS files remain the source of truth

CMS References